Healthy Birth Practice 5: Avoid Giving Birth on Your Back and Follow Your Body's Urges to PushAdapted from The Official Lamaze Guide: Giving Birth with Confidence.

When it’s time to push your baby out, remember that instinct, tradition, and science are all on your side. Current evidence shows that letting you assume whatever position you find most comfortable, encouraging you to push in response to what you feel, and letting you push as long as you and your baby are doing well are all beneficial practices.

Download the Lamaze Healthy Birth Practice Paper, available in eight languages, to learn more about how upright and "gravity-neutral" positions benefit both you and your baby.

Learn how to keep your birth as natural as possible if you have to use directed pushing.

Watch a video of natural births and discover how some women use non-supine positions while pushing.